While these events occurred at Beneventum, Hannibal having laid waste the territory of Naples, moved his camp to Nola. The consul, as soon as he was aware of his approach, sent for Pemponius the propraetor, with the troops he had in the camp above Suessula; and then prepared to meet the enemy and to make no delay in fighting. He sent out Caius Claudius Nero in the dead of night with the main strength of the cavalry, through the gate which was farthest removed from the enemy, with orders to make a circuit so as not to be observed, and then slowly to follow the enemy as they moved along, and as soon as he perceived the battle begun, to charge them on the rear. Whether Nero was prevented from executing these orders by mistaking the route, or from the shortness of the time, is doubtful. Though he was absent when the battle was fought, the Romans had unquestionably the advantage; but as the cavalry did not come up in time, the plan of the battle which had been agreed upon was disconcerted and Marcellus, not daring to follow the retiring enemy, gave the signal for retreat when his soldiers were conquering More than two thousand of the enemy are said, however, to have fallen on that day; of the Romans, less than four hundred. Nero, after having fruitlessly wearied both men and horses, through the day and night, without even having seen the enemy, returned about sunset; when the consul went so far in reprimanding him as to assert, that he had been the only obstacle to their retorting on the enemy the disaster sustained at Cannae. The following day the Roman came into the field, but the Carthaginian, beaten even by his own tacit confession, kept within his camp. Giving up all hope of getting possession of Nola, a thing never attempted without loss, during the silence of the night of the third day he set out for Tarentum, which he had better hopes of having betrayed to him.
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Nor were the Roman affairs administered with less spirit at home than in the field. The censors being freed from the care of letting out the erection of public works, from the low state of the treasury, turned their attention to the regulation of men's morals, and the chastisement of vices which sprung up during the war, in the same manner as constitutions broken down by protracted disease, generate other maladies. In the first place, they cited those persons who, after the battle of Cannae, were said to have formed a design of abandoning the commonwealth, and leaving Italy. The chief of these was Lucius Caecilius Metellus, who happened to be then quaestor. In the next place, as neither he nor the other persons concerned were able to exculpate themselves on being ordered to make their defence, they pronounced them guilty of having used words and discourse prejudicial to the state, that a conspiracy might be formed for the abandonment of Italy. After them were cited those persons who showed too much ingenuity in inventing a method of discharging the obligation of their oath, namely, such of the prisoners as concluded that the oath which they had sworn to return, would be fulfilled by their going back privately to Hannibal's camp, after setting out on their journey. Such of these and of the above-mentioned as had horses at the public expense were deprived of them, and all were degraded from their tribes and disfranchised. Nor was the attention of the censors confined to the regulation of the senate and the equestrian order. They erased from the lists of the junior centuries the names of all who had not served during the last four years, unless they were regularly exempted, or were prevented by sickness. Those too, amounting to more than two thousand names, were numbered among the disfranchised, and were all degraded. To this more gentle stigma affixed by the censors, a severe decree of the senate was added, to the effect that all those whom the censor had stigmatized, should serve on foot, and be sent into Sicily to join the remains of the army of Cannae, a class of soldiers whose time of service was not to terminate till the enemy was driven out of Italy. The censors, in consequence of the poverty of the treasury, having abstained from receiving contracts for the repairs of the sacred edifices, the furnishing of curule horses, and similar matters, the persons who had been accustomed to attend auctions of this description, came to the censors in great numbers, and exhorted them to "transact all their business and let out the contracts in the same manner as if there were money in the treasury. That none of them would ask for money out of the treasury before the war was concluded." Afterwards the owners of those slaves whom Tiberius Sempronius had manumitted at Beneventum, came to them, stating that they were sent for by the public bankers, to receive the price of their slaves, but that they would not accept of it till the war was concluded. This disposition on the part of the commons to sustain the impoverished treasury having manifested itself, the property of minors first, and then the portions of widows, began to be brought in; the persons who brought them being persuaded, that their deposit would no where be more secure and inviolable than under the public faith. If any thing was bought or laid in for the widows and minors, an order upon the quaestor was given for it. This liberality in individuals flowed from the city into the camp also, insomuch that no horseman or centurion would accept of his pay, and those who would accept it were reproached with the appellation of mercenary men.
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Quintus Fabius, the consul, was encamped before Casilinum, which was occupied by a garrison of two thousand Campanians and seven hundred of the soldiers of Hannibal. The commander was Statius Metius, who was sent there by Cneius Magius Atellanus, who was that year Medixtuticus and was arming the slaves and people without distinction, in order to assault the Roman camp, while the consul was intently occupied in the siege of Casilinum. None of these things escaped Fabius. He therefore sent to his colleague at Nola, "That another army was requisite, which might be opposed to the Campanians, while the siege of Casilinum was going on; that either he should come himself, leaving a force sufficient for the protection of Nola, or if the state of Nola required him to stay there, in consequence of its not being yet secure against the attempts of Hannibal, that he should summon Tiberius Gracchus, the proconsul, from Beneventum." On this message, Marcellus, leaving two thousand troops in garrison at Nola, came to Casilinum with the rest of his forces; and at his arrival the Campanians, who were already in motion, desisted from their operations. Thus the siege of Casilinum was commenced by the two consuls. But as the Roman soldiers received many wounds as they rashly approached the walls, and as they did not succeed satisfactorily in their attempts. Fabius gave it as his opinion that this, which was a small matter, though as difficult as more important ones, should be abandoned, and that they should retire from the place, as affairs of greater moment were pressing. Marcellus, however, succeeded in persuading him that they should not go away with their object unaccomplished, observing that as there were many objects which great generals should not attempt, so when once attempted they should not be abandoned, because the mere report in either case would have important consequences. Upon this the vineae and all kinds of military works and engines were applied; in consequence of which, the Campanians entreated Fabius to allow them to retire to Capua in safety; when a few of them having come out of the town, Marcellus took possession of the gate through which they passed, and first slew all indiscriminately who were near the gate, and then rushing in, the slaughter commenced in the town also. About fifty of the Campanians, who at first came out of the city, having fled for refuge to Fabius, arrived safe at Capua under his protection. Thus Casilinum was captured on an accidental opportunity which occurred during the conferences and delay of those who were soliciting protection. The prisoners, both those who were Campanians and those who were Hannibal's soldiers, were sent to Rome, where they were shut up in a prison. The crowd of townsmen was distributed among the neighbouring people to be kept in custody.
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